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Diagnosed with Complex Trauma and a Dissociative Disorder, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about complex trauma, dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality), etc.), and mental health. Educational, supportive, inclusive, and inspiring, System Speak documents her healing journey through the best and worst of life in recovery through insights, conversations, and collaborations.
Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast,
Speaker 2:a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Today, we're talking about chapter five from Pryce for admission. You guys, it's totally my new wolves book, so we're still going through it. I have been reading this book for a year and a half, and it has changed everything. I don't know how much to tell you Between this and doctor Tema and her books and my conversations with Chuck Benincasa, everything in my life has changed. Throw that in with really good therapy, I can't even tell you.
Speaker 1:Cannot even tell you. Laurent Brown starts this chapter talking about how it is hardwired into us to have the ability to know when we are being tricked or lied to and that this was part of survival of this species that we had to very quickly be able to assess when we're in danger without having time to think about it or deliberate about it. So this goes back to neuroception. We know what that's called now, and that is our body's capacity to respond to danger faster than we can think about it. So, like, the classic example of this we've talked about on the podcast before are jump scares in a movie.
Speaker 1:Our body responds to danger so fast that we jump when there's a jump scare in a movie because our body is responding faster than we can think that this is just a movie even when we already know it's a movie. That's how deeply attuned our bodies are for danger. Semicolon, however, comma, when we are children growing up with complex trauma and deprivation, if we utilize this capacity, then it would be impossible for us to maintain the attachment with our caregivers that are harming us or depriving us or both to stay alive, which means survival wins even over that, and we start to turn that capacity down or even off. She says, the child you were found yourself in an intolerable dilemma of choosing between knowing the truth of what was happening to you and being attached so as to survive long enough to figure out that something had gone very wrong. Okay.
Speaker 1:We also know that this is called betrayal trauma theory. So clinically, we call this betrayal trauma theory, if you wanna look that up. If we also apply it to institutions, that work has been done by Jennifer Gomez. She's totally worth looking up. These are the same folks that also talk about Darvo.
Speaker 1:So this was a huge breakthrough in our understanding of relational trauma specifically. Because if the choice we have is between knowing that we're being betrayed versus having some kind of attachment, attachment will always win. Survival always trumps knowing our own pain. So this goes back to the example of the skier. We've talked about this before where the analogy is that if a person goes cross country skiing and breaks their leg and if they are alone on the trail, then the most important thing survival is to get back to where help is available.
Speaker 1:And the person may manage to return to civilization ignoring or not even feeling the pain until they are safely with others because survival trumps knowing the pain. Even if doing so would compound the damage of the broken bone by getting to safety. However, if the skier is out with others, the attachment and support to get help is there already. Someone could call for help. Others can keep them company.
Speaker 1:Someone else can go get help. Others can get resources to brace the leg. So the skier in that situation immediately feels the pain of the broken leg, but won't have to do any additional damage to get to safety and have the injury treated. This is why she says that some children don't remember what has happened to them until later in life because it is attachment to the caregiver that was necessary for survival. So it's not until we are safe and attached to safe people later in life, which for lots of us, it takes a really long time to find that.
Speaker 1:And then once we're safe, we start feeling all the things and kind of get flooded with all of it. She says the exception to this is if there is another child in danger because of it, then sometimes things surface earlier. And then applying that more to now time, Laura says, sexual abuse is not the only betrayal by a caregiver that survivors have learned to unknow in order to maintain attachment. Lots of other below standard experiences at the hand of caregivers get forgotten, misremembered, or downplayed. Less than adequate attachment experiences are an invitation to large scale dissociation of the knowledge of how one has been betrayed by the caregiver.
Speaker 1:The child knows emotionally that something is not right even if pain is involved, even if no pain is involved Because caregivers who harm children usually know that they're committing a crime and exude disturbing emotional states, all of which are aversive for a child to remain in contact. The kid wants to leave the situation as quickly as possible, but leaving is not physically possible for children. So, again, even if they this is where that relational trauma piece comes in. For someone to experience trauma and deprivation, the abuse, which is such a strong word, but it does not have to be physical or sexual. Relational is enough because relational is what because relational is where our survival comes from.
Speaker 1:She says infants in less than adequate anxiety provoking or disorganizing attachment relationships, so either a frightened caregiver or a frightening caregiver. Those children as infants learn how to dissociate. This means that you become unable to remember, unable to feel, unable to think thoughts about the painful relationship and what's being done to you. You proceed to unknow what you're feeling. Yours you silence your cheater detectors no matter how loudly they are blaring in an effort to let yourself know just how profoundly unworthy of trust this adult is.
Speaker 1:So it's generally to our advantage to know when we're being betrayed so that we can end our association with with the person who's betraying us or insisting on a return to safety. That said, when we're children, it is a disadvantage to know that we're being betrayed because attachment to those who are supposed to care for us trumps everything else. Attachment is our only path to survival when we're young. Okay. And then she talks about how when you have safe enough and healthy relational experiences growing up, that the world just sort of feels like it centers around you in healthy ways where you have these positive experiences that help you recreate more positive experiences.
Speaker 1:Like, becomes exponential. You just grow in that and grow in that and grow in that as you develop. And then your adult relationships, even when they're difficult, you have the skills to navigate what's hard or to repair ruptures or to tend to safety and things like that, to intervene in your own behalf, to advocate for yourself, all the things. But when we don't have that, when we have trauma and experience deprivation, then we grow up with an exponential degree of vulnerability. And when our needs are not being met, because we have to maintain that attachment, instead of being angry at the injustice that we're not being cared for, we become angry at ourselves.
Speaker 1:Instead of acknowledging that our caregivers are hating us or dismissing of us, We hate ourselves and dismiss ourselves. She says, in this way, you internalize the words that were thrown at you. Your grown up was unhappy, so it was your fault. Your grown up hit you. Of course, you made them do it.
Speaker 1:Your grown up told you you were a little piece of crap if you left the blocks out when they stumbled over them and when they came home wasted. They wouldn't have tripped and broken their nose. It's your fault. You're bad. You're the monarch of darkness, The horrible, powerful creature who can get people 10 times your size and age to behave badly.
Speaker 1:The spotlight was turned on you to make it easier to single you out and punish you for existing. Sometimes your caregiver did that directly hurling insults at you. Sometimes you had to figure it out for yourself by reading between the lines and watching the patterns. Either way, you got the message. You learned that you were the problem.
Speaker 1:That way, you were able to maintain the belief that the adult was good and loving and safe. This is Alice in Wonderland. Upside down reasoning allowed you to remain attached Because, of course, none of those conclusions are true or accurate. Right? But that is what we experience as children.
Speaker 1:She says children in less than adequate anxiety inducing and disorganizing attachment relationships with caregivers are offered a devil's bargain that returns with vengeance in the context of adult relationships. Know that you are betrayed and lose connection. Lost connection means risk of death. Unknown betrayal, maintain connection, then continue to be subjected to betrayal and harm. Continued connection means danger, shame, suffering, self hatred, and the development of belief in paying the price to be in relationships.
Speaker 1:So then she's talking about how we grow up and find relationships that act this out, where people are causing us harm sometimes in silent, invisible ways, and people are depriving us of care and stability and safety. And then we work so hard to maintain those attachments because our memory time child brains are afraid of death if we let go of those attachments. But the sacrifice of maintaining that relationship, the price of maintaining that relationship is the chaos and confusion of hating ourselves, of betraying ourselves. So we develop what she calls betrayal blindness. So then she gives this great example of if you're in your house with your partner and the smoke detector batteries are going off because they need to be changed, but your partner instead is like, I'll just take them out because we can smell the smoke if something goes wrong.
Speaker 1:And so then there's no other warning system except your partner confirming to you that there is smoke. So then later when you do smell smoke, you search the house and try to find it, and she says, your you find your partner pouring water on something. Did you smell smoke? You ask. Oh, no, comes the response.
Speaker 1:You must have been mistaken. Two weeks later, you smell smoke again. The response this time is, there must have been someone walking by the open window with a lit cigarette. And then you hear, maybe you should get yourself checked out by a neurologist. I'm worried about you smelling things that aren't there.
Speaker 1:The smoke detectors are all disabled, so you have to rely on your spouse's validation or absence thereof to make sense of what you're smelling. And then your partner burns down the house. You barely escape, burned in more ways than just physically. She says, by the time you are able to know and speak the truth about the level of betrayal you have endured, how much harm has happened, and how deprived you have been in relationship, the relationship is already damaged, sometimes beyond repair. The fact that the traitor's body is still around and in proximity to you is irrelevant.
Speaker 1:The connection, the attachment, any pretense of emotional intimacy and transparency is already long on its way to smoldering embers that are being hauled away to the dump. You sensed what was happening as the relationship got worse. Worsening conditions may have even helped you to bring your detectors back online. But sometimes you sense nothing at all until the entire force of the betrayal was made known to you, and you were escaping from a burning building. You telling the truth, you paying attention to a clue, you confronting the traitor, none of that was the problem.
Speaker 1:The rule that telling the truth is a bad thing turns out to be as false today as it was when you were little. Your desire to connect is not what made all of this happen. You were not so needy that the person had to betray you. Abuse is a form of infidelity to a relationship. Abuse violates a commitment to make the other person's welfare equal to your own.
Speaker 1:No one is so needy, so difficult, so boring, so distracted that they deserve to be betrayed. The traitor always had choices for solving the problem that did not include betraying you. So she makes the point that all of us have felt if being betrayed by these different ways, if relational trauma and deprivation has been our baseline, then how do we find someone who is different than that, who is not going to cause us harm, who is not going to deprive us of care or safety. How do we even know to recognize it if we've never had it? She says.
Speaker 1:She says we all have access to finding examples of it and starting our learning there. So even if it wasn't caregivers, it could have been a teacher or a librarian. I love that she used that example. Or I think of the lady at the bagel shop. I'm not even kidding.
Speaker 1:The guy with the hat down at the river. There are different tiny, tiny examples that you can build on. Maybe later, we finally get with a good therapist who's actually intervening and actually helping and actually advocating for our safety and stability and empowering us to do that ourselves. That's an example. And we take from these examples the pieces that we need and sort of create it from there.
Speaker 1:And then we are able to develop that and recognize it when we see it. She said, notice what these people have in common. These people said what they were going to do, and they did it. They were transparent and kept commitments. There was no smoke and mirrors.
Speaker 1:These people took responsibility for their actions. They made few, if any, excuses. And when they did, the excuse was reasonable and called for. When they screwed up and were far less than decent and honorable, they said so, and they took initiative to repair the breach. You you do not hear them say that you made me do that.
Speaker 1:These people were relatively consistent. That is part of stability. These people had pretty good mastery of their emotions in most circumstances. They didn't yell or explode or cry at you as a matter of course, and they weren't shut down. You didn't have to guess at what was going on with them, but they didn't overshare or drown you either.
Speaker 1:These people were genuinely curious about others. They listened without any predetermined assumptions about what they would hear, and they responded to what was being said, not to whatever monologue was happening in their own heads. These people never ever used violence, even relational or interpersonal violence, to solve problems. No matter how angry or upset they were, they never resorted to violence, verbal, emotional, or physical. They didn't punish you.
Speaker 1:They didn't take things away from you. Their love was not conditional. They didn't call anyone names, put anyone down, or use sarcasm or contempt to silence you. These people worked with you in a collaborative and empowering manner. These people had insight into themselves.
Speaker 1:They did their best to understand who they were and what motivated them. They were as transparent as they knew how to be. I would say for folks with complex trauma and dissociation, part of what's really important is that we have a capacity to tell the difference between now time and memory time. And I don't just mean with, like, flashbacks or something we're remembering, but relationally and emotionally, when now time is invading, being able to discern the difference for that, we will not have safety. She says, people can grow on you, demonstrating their trustworthiness over time.
Speaker 1:That's often what happens in my therapy office. I keep showing up, behaving in what I hope is a trustworthy manner, encouraging people to keep assessing me and never assume that I've done enough, but rather know that trust is something I must earn daily. I often repair ruptures. I take responsibility for when my own stuff leak. That said, people can also grow off you, showing you that as time goes on, they are less willing to deal with you and others in an honest and decent and safe manner.
Speaker 1:It can be instructive to see what someone does when they're under stress. Can they be their usual self, or do they give themselves a free pass to behave badly when life is going poorly? Those are very important pieces of data. That's what my therapist talks about of other people's internal landscapes polluting yours or memory time getting weaponized against you. When we get stuff activated, that happens, especially when we have complex trauma and dissociation.
Speaker 1:But it is our responsibility to tend to that, not to use it as a weapon in a relationship. And then she talks about this book called the gift of fear, which I have also gotten. The author, this doctor Becker, is a survivor of a childhood from hell, lived experience, and yet was still able to learn how to be effective in his relationships with others. But one of the most important things that he says is that if you are afraid of someone, not afraid of connection, not afraid of being seen or known, not afraid of being vulnerable, but afraid of that person, then you should pay attention to that signal from inside and never forget that. My therapist also has talked about this, and this goes back to what I learned about attachment labels not being I thought, okay.
Speaker 1:This strange situation reveals what kind of attachment you have, and then that is the attachment you have, and you do that all the time with everybody. And my therapist is like, no. Because you're also talking about this relationship and that relationship, and you don't have these problems in those other ships. Right? So if you're having ship specific problems that are not translating to other areas of your life, then that is a problem with that ship, and it's important information to know that.
Speaker 1:Right? So if we are safe and receiving care, so we're not being deprived, and we are not being harmed, so there's not trauma, then that will be a secure relationship even if also we still have attachment wounds from childhood. But if we are having attachment wound responses in now time, it means we are being harmed or deprived. Doctor Becker says that there are pre incident indicators, which he calls PINs, p I n, preincident indicators. One is forced teaming.
Speaker 1:When someone is forcing you to be a couple but without letting you be an individual, Doesn't let you connect with friends. Doesn't let you have community without them. Doesn't let you be yourself. Tells you your schedule. Tells you like, is all these controlling things.
Speaker 1:Charm and niceness of being using charm and niceness as part of how you get manipulated or how your mistrust gets disarmed. So I would add to that in the context with complex trauma and dissociation, this is all this is also where that sexualized child comes in and gets or gets activated, and that is not safe. That is not healthy, and that is not okay. Demanding that we rescue that sexualized child, that is not healthy. That is not safe.
Speaker 1:That is incest. Not because we're their actual parent, but because it is child to adult relationship, which is not to be romantic or sexual. Then they talk about too many details, people who are trying to make excuses or spend hours and hours talking through the details of things because it is part of that hypnotic induction to avoid facing the the harm that they are causing instead of taking accountability for their own stuff. It's part of DARVO. The tight casting of overwhelming you, but then saying that you wouldn't love them because they're so needy so that you're in a double bind of you can't not tend to them because then it verifies that because then it confirms that to them, and also that's a wound you're not actually responsible for healing.
Speaker 1:They have to do that healing work. Right? So this is an example where Al Anon became really important for me. And then they also talk about loan sharking or giving help that the person actually isn't wanting or needing or asking for, but then holding that over them and using it as punishment and control so that the relationship is transactional and ways to keep you stuck in it as opposed to it being something that is empowering and not conditional. There's also the unsolicited promise to do or not do something that wasn't even asked for, and that is almost always indicator the promise will be broken or not actually happen.
Speaker 1:Like, I'm gonna take you to this thing, or I'll do this for your kids, and then that doesn't actually happen. And so you're sort of it's, a delay response of control. So rather than immediate control, it keeps you stuck in this situation because there are these future things that are, like, moving the carrot or the example of trying to catch a train that's always running. Like, you you you're always running to get on that train, but it's always being moved. Or they say in English sometimes the goalpost is being moved, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And then discounting the word no, refusing to accept rejection with a clear boundary. No means yes to someone who's not worthy of your trust. So those boundaries of, I don't want this. I'm saying no. I need to stop.
Speaker 1:This doesn't feel good to me. No. No. No. And instead of that being respected and held space for or whatever the context is, even trying to break up with them and the no not being respected or the breakup not being accepted, and so then you're still in the relationship because they didn't accept your breakup, That's their work on accepting the breakup is their business.
Speaker 1:They have to do that work. And, of course, any kind of breakup is painful, or any kind of limit or boundary is sometimes difficult. And, also, that is part of safety is respecting it. No means no. And when your no doesn't get to be met or your no isn't heard, you don't have consent.
Speaker 1:That is control. She says, abuse is never ever a price that anyone should pay for connection. It was wrong when you were little, and it's no less wrong now. Abuse in a relationship can take many forms. The hallmark of any form of abuse is the presence of coercion and control.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be hit or kicked to be abused. A person may also be physically violent one time without being abusive, Although violence is never acceptable, it doesn't turn into abuse until it becomes a means of coercion and control. Many forms of abuse do not involve physical violence, and many of the targets of the nonphysical kinds of abuse say that these are harder to identify because the parameters of the abuse are less obvious than when someone is hitting, kicking, or throwing things at you or destroying your property. Look for the elements of coercion and control. These are the indicators that you're an abusive dynamic with someone else.
Speaker 1:This is interpersonal violence, what used to be called domestic violence. Right? And we need to remember that that happens in LGBT relationships too. It is not just, like, a stereotypical straight people thing. Any relationship, any ship at all, even friendships, even workplaces, This helped me this book helped me recognize even what was happening at work, that I was being exploited like a machine for my time and energy, but without being fairly compensated, and that that was not safe for me, that I needed to change my job.
Speaker 1:I've also experienced it with friendships where, as friendship was developing with that being exploring of what do I want out of this ship, and what do I not? And if I set boundaries and no, and then they try to sink my ship, that's coercion and control. Retaliation is coercion and control. That is abusive. No means no.
Speaker 1:And if someone is actually caring for you, then they're not going to become violent even in these other coercive control ways just because you say no. She says verbal abuse turns out to be alarmingly common in romantic relationships. If the other party uses threat, denigration, gaslighting, or other forms of emotional manipulation to force you into behaviors that feel like a violation of your values as a condition of being in connection or that confuse you repeatedly about what's real, that's abuse. You guys, I said so many times, what is even real? What is even real?
Speaker 1:I'm so confused. I'm so confused. When I talked to Chuck Benincasa and then took that to therapy, what both of them said is we are only confused when we have been put into positions that are violation of our own values. So when we are in danger, we are attuned to our environment instead of ourselves, and that is when we feel confused. That is when we are disoriented.
Speaker 1:Extreme jealousy in which one party interferes with the other's association is abuse. So if you have a friend that says you have to date me, or I'm going to do this or this or this to you, that is abuse. If you have to date me or I'm going to tell people this and this about you, that is abuse. If you are in a relationship with someone and they isolate you from your friends and community, that is abuse. She says consistent undermining of your free choices and punitive responses to your bids for autonomy are evidence of coercion and control.
Speaker 1:No one, and I mean no one, ever deserves to be abused in any way in any relationship. No one. I don't care how difficult you've been or how badly you screwed things up. You do not deserve to be abused. Abuse is never an acceptable price of relationship.
Speaker 1:Never. If you have actually been a difficult person, if you've been unfaithful to your commitments, or if you violated boundaries, you do deserve nonabusive consequences. You owe amends, and you need to make repair. You owe a willingness to hear the other person out as she tells you their feelings about the effect on them. The model of 12 step programs is a good one for how to act when you've done something that's genuinely not okay versus being just a little too human.
Speaker 1:You make a searching and fearless moral inventory. You admit to the nature of your wrongs. You exhibit willingness to change and initiate the process of making amends unless doing so would harm them or others. You behave with responsibility toward the person you have wronged in some way. You don't expect that person to stick around or to absolve you.
Speaker 1:It is goes back to parentification. It is not your responsibility to make your abuser feel better about the shitty way they treated you. Notice that in none of this is the statement, you must tolerate being screamed at, called out, berated, called names, berated endlessly, or made to feel worthless. Nothing about this, of owning your own accountability and things, includes the assertion that you must redouble your efforts to pay a price of admission to a relationship or that you must abase yourself in shame at your bad behavior. Abuse is not a reasonable consequence for you having missed the mark even if you behave badly.
Speaker 1:Abuse is a betrayal of human connection that no one deserve. Being put back on your blanket is not a relationship. That is abuse. Couples therapy is contraindicated for people who are in abusive relationship. She says, violent relationships are hard to leave because of their debilitating effects.
Speaker 1:Leaving doesn't necessarily feel safe and often isn't. More women who had been in violent relationships were killed at the point of leaving them than at any other time. If the severity and intensity of the violence increases, if the violent person escalates the potential lethality of his or her tactics, or if that person is threatening to kill you or themselves, Please take this very seriously. These are known red flags that predict a lethal outcome for one or both people. Stay alive.
Speaker 1:Get to safety. Go somewhere that the violent person cannot have access to you or your kids. You may even need restraining orders. If someone is threatening to kill you or themselves, that means someone is very likely to end up dead if you do not get away to safety as soon as possible. Do not blame yourself for the violence.
Speaker 1:Do not think that staying will make things better or save them. It will not. You could die. The other person could die. Your kids could die.
Speaker 1:You have to get to safety. You have to leave, and you have to do it now. She says in bold, put this book down and get to safety now. You can always read this book later when you're safe. You can't read it if you're dead, and you are not responsible for keeping someone else alive.
Speaker 1:I was overwhelmed and shocked to read that on the page in such explicitly direct terms. And, also, she's not wrong, And safety matters more than anything else. If you have to leave, if you have to move, if you have to do whatever it takes to get you and your family to safety, that is what matters. If you have been isolated from social support, from friends, from community, then part of getting to safety will be coming out of isolation, will be saying the things, will be saying no more, will be choosing yourself. That is how we stay alive together.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing. One of the ways we practice this is in community together. The link for the community is in the show notes.
Speaker 2:We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too. That's what peer support is all about, being human together.
Speaker 2:So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.